How should employees be automatically enrolled?
There is a process you need to follow to enrol your employees into your workplace pension.
There are three main steps to take:
- Provide details of all eligible jobholders to the pension scheme
- Provide information to the eligible jobholders about automatic enrolment
- Ensure the eligible jobholder becomes an 'active' member of the pension. This often depends on the rules of the scheme.
These flowcharts show how automatic enrolment could work.
It is your responsibility to identify all employees who need to be automatically enrolled into the scheme and to give their details to the trustees, manager or pension scheme provider within a month of their automatic enrolment date.
Information to be provided
About the eligible jobholders to the pension scheme:
- Name
- Gender
- Date of birth
- Automatic enrolment date
- Residential address
- NI number
- Postal work address
- Work email address
- Personal email address (if known)
- Gross earnings
- Employee and employer contributions
About the pension scheme to the eligible jobholders:
-
Automatic enrolment and how this affects them
- A statement that the jobholder will be enrolled into a pension scheme
- Their automatic enrolment date
- The contact details of the pension scheme
- Employee and employer contributions
- A statement that the employees contributions will be deducted from their earnings
- Information about tax relief
- Confirmation that the jobholder can stay in the scheme until they choose to leave
- How they can opt-out
- How they can opt back in
- Pensions in general and saving for retirement
Details about the mandatory information you need to provide can be found on The Pensions Regulator's website.
Jobholders who want to opt-out
Eligible jobholders have the right to opt-out of the pension scheme at any time. They can opt-out by completing an 'opt-out notice'. These will usually be available from the pension provider, not the employer. This is to make sure that the decision to opt-out is taken freely.
The notice can be provided as a printed or an electronic form which the employer must check is valid. This means that it must be submitted within the opt out period and contain certain wording.
If they opt-out within a month of their automatic enrolment date then any deductions from their wages will be refunded provided the employer has received the opt-out notice within the opt-out period. If they cease contributions after this time they will not receive their contributions back.
Workers who want to opt-in
Some workers who are not automatically enrolled can choose to opt-in to the pension scheme.
Non-eligible jobholders can do this by giving their employer an 'opt-in notice'. Entitled workers can do this by giving their employer a 'joining notice'.
The notice does not need to be a formal document, but when the employer receives the notice, they must make arrangements for the workers to become an active member of the scheme.
